Some reason Why XP owners won’t love Windows 7

Microsoft is betting that Windows 7 will succeed where Windows Vista failed. But there’s one group of people who most likely won’t like Windows 7 any more than they do Windows Vista — Windows XP users. Here’s why.One of the biggest complaints that XP users had with Windows Vista was its hardware incompatibilities. Older printers, scanners, network cards, and other peripherals simply didn’t work with Vista. Here’s the bad news: They won’t work in Windows 7, either, because Windows 7 uses the same driver model as Windows Vista. So XP users will be out of luck.

XP users also tend not to be fans of Vista’s Windows Aero and other interface enhancements that they dismiss as so much frou-frou. Guess what — there’s even more frou-frou in Windows 7, such as a new taskbar and a nice new feature called Aero Peek. (For more details, see “Review: Windows 7 Beta 1 shows off new task bar, more UI goodies.”) Those features won’t make XP users happy.

Some XP users I know simply don’t like change. They’d like the old Windows Explorer back, or the Run box back, or would have liked to have seen the same desktop icons in Vista that were in XP. Even though Vista let them customize it so that it had some old XP features, it was still different enough that they weren’t happy.

Once again, Windows 7 won’t make them any more happy. It’s different than XP — and as far as I’m concerned, better as well.

The Value of Windows Vista

We waited more than five years for Vista. As you may recall, Windows XP was released with much fanfare in October 2001. But instead of the next Windows version shipping in just a couple of years, as originally expected, Microsoft lost its way in the development process. Vista didn’t make it to consumers until early 2007. Was it worth the wait? The short answer is, “Yes.” We believe Vista is a major advance on Microsoft’s previous operating systems. If you’re buying a new PC today, we don’t hesitate to recommend that you get Vista rather than requesting XP or another, older operating system. (If you’re upgrading an older PC to Vista, by contrast, be sure to first read our tips in Chapter 3.) In 2001, Microsoft executives widely claimed that XP was “the most secure operating system we have ever delivered.” In fact, XP and its new Web browser, Internet Explorer 6.0, were full of maddening security holes that previous operating systems didn’t suffer from.
ActiveX exploits, drive-by downloads, and many other kinds of weaknesses were quickly exploited by black-hat hackers. Microsoft has been issuing patches for XP and IE 6.0 ever since. The Vista OS and the new IE 7.0 browser are welcome steps toward changing that. Will they never need patching? We’d hardly say that. But Microsoft has added “hardening” features to Vista that should make remote exploits more difficult for hackers to carry out. Besides improved security, XP users who switch to Vista will also find enhancements in desktop searching, Windows Sidebar access to applets called gadgets, PC-to-PC content transfers, and even new games—mahjong and (finally!) chess. Unlike the first chapters of most books—which are filled with boilerplate thank-you and personal musings—we really do want you to read this chapter. Instead of filling our first few pages with acknowledgements of names you’ve never heard of, we’ve moved the credits for our valued sources into the chapters they helped us with. In these pages, we aim to give you a crash course on Windows Vista. In other words, read on and you can learn the most important new features of Vista in the time it takes to sip a nice, hot cuppa Joe.

Six new annoyances introduced in Windows 7

As a flip-side to Ed Bott’s “Six Vista annoyances fixed in Windows 7” I thought I’d play Devil’s Advocate and offer up what I think are a selection of potentially new annoyances that Windows 7 introduces.

#1 – Revamped Taskbar and Start Menu are far from perfect

My take on the Taskbar and Start Menu is that it’s going to be one of those things that people either love or hate. Like any major change in the user interface it is bound to attract automatic criticism, but given that it is undoubtedly flawed.

The new revamped taskbar is visually very interesting (and certainly a lot easier to use at higher screen resolutions that the Vista or XP taskbar), but it tries to do too much and as such comes across as kludgey and counter-intuitive. One failure is that it’s hard to tell the difference between apps that are running and shortcuts that have been pinned to the taskbar.

#2 – Goodbye Classic theme

If you never really bonded with the Vista look and preferred to use the Classic look, then Windows 7 isn’t for you because the Classic theme is gone. OK, there is a Classic theme, but it’s basically the new Start Menu with a new skin and nothing like the classic Classic theme.

#3 – Ribbon UI make a patchy appearance

The Ribbon UI in Office 2007 was one of those love it or hate it changes. Well, whether you loved it or hated it, the Ribbon now makes an appearance in Windows 7 on Paint and WordPad. If you like the Ribbon, great, you get to play with it in a few apps, while not in others. If you hate the Ribbon, well, tough, you’re stuck with it in these apps.

#4 – For some users, Windows 7 will mean more time spent setting up

Gone are applications such as Windows Mail, Windows Messenger, Movie Maker and so on. Anyone wanting apps of this sort will need to download then via Windows Live Essentials. Problem is, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure and if you use these apps Windows 7 means having to download and set up the apps that you need.

#5 – Search is odd

Why is it that when I search for say “Note” from the Start Menu I get Sticky Notes above Notepad? I’ve noticed countless such examples of strange behavior from the search system. Either it’s not been fully refined yet, or there’s some strange logic at work there.

#6 – Jump Lists are messy

Jump Lists is a new feature that Microsoft claims will give the user access to tasks related to specific applications.

(full Story)

Vista Now Open Source

The big open source struggle that began with Linux, moved to enterprise applications and then the consumer space, is now pointed directly at the heads of doctors and hospitals.

VistA, the public record EHR and hospital management software created by the Veterans Administration, is once again an open source movement with word that DSS, its biggest commercial licenser, is switching to the Eclipse Public License.

In a press release posted by its PR firm, the company also said it is joining the Open Health Tools Foundation.

In the press release DSS President Mark Byers was frank about the company’s ambitions with the move:

1. Make VistA a standard framework in the coming battles over health IT; and

2. Get greater cooperation with the open source VistA community.

This is huge news, wrote open source health expert Fred Trotter at his blog. It changes the VistA game and gives open source a strong competitor in VistA software alongside Clearhealth and Medsphere.

While he expressed some skepticism about whether DSS “knows how” to be an open source vendor, Trotter’s piece was welcoming and he offered high praise for its code:

The fact that DSS has chosen to release its code through OHT brings a new relevance to OHT. There should be no confusion however; OHT is relevant because it is working to release DSS code, not the other way around. The code that DSS is releasing has the potential to be vastly more valuable than anything OHT has even attempted.

The move to strengthen open source and VistA is well-timed, given the new Administration’s promise to increase health IT spending. Whether it can beat a city filled with lobbyists is anyone’s guess. (full Story)

Ultimate Windows Tweaker Unlocks Hidden Vista Options

There are a number of apps that have dubbed themselves the "TweakUI" for Windows Vista, and one of the newest contestants for the title is the Ultimate Windows Tweaker. The app is free, supports both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, and only offers the relevant tweaks for your version of Vista and installed applications. Ultimate Windows Tweaker features over 130 tweaks and customizations designed to give you a bit more control over your Vista installation.

The Ultimate Windows Tweaker is a portable app and requires no installation. You can drop the executable on a thumb drive or a network share and use it to configure as many Vista systems as you choose. Best of all, it’s tiny, and weighs in at under 1MB.

Once you run the app, you can choose from seven areas to customize, including User Accounts and UAC, Security, System and Performance, Network Optimization, and more. The personalization tweaks are largely UI options that allow you to make Vista look and behave the way you want. The System and Performance options are some of the most useful, and allow you to tweak Vista to shut down faster and tell Vista to automatically end unresponsive programs.

The Ultimate Windows Tweaker also allows you to customize Internet Explorer for performance, and will automatically detect whether you’re running IE7 or an IE8 Beta. Once the app knows what version of IE you’re running, it will only present you with the options available for that version. You can also make changes to the way Vista handles networking, bandwidth, and shared files and folders. (full Story)